Undercity (17 page)

XVI

A Third Realm

The arched entrance to the Concourse was on the outskirts of Cries, beyond a terraced plaza. The entry stood at the top of the stairs that led down to the Concourse, which at its start lay only one story below ground level. The entrance was always open, with pennants snapping in the breezes and colored lights glowing on the arch at night. Gatekeepers looked after the entrance, welcoming visitors at an information kiosk at the bottom of the stairs. Beyond the kiosk, the Concourse stretched out in a wide avenue. Establishments lined the avenue, most at street level, though in a few places the shops and bistros were a few meters higher than the street, creating a terrace ideal for cafés with tables outside. A few lanes wandered off from the main avenue to areas with nightclubs. The main street sloped down in a gradual incline at first, but the ceiling stayed at ground level, until it was three stories above the street. Skylights up there let in sunlight, and police patrolled the area to ensure that tourists and above-city visitors were safe.

Exits from the Concourse into the true undercity were far different.

In one short hike, from gleaming entrance to ragged exit, the Concourse changed from a wonderland of lights and festive shops to a grungy alley. The street extended for over a kilometer, narrowing bit by bit, until at its end, it was no more than an uneven lane. The ceiling sloped down and a haze filled the air, coming from braziers in the market shacks, stoves where vendors were cooking their goods, and mist that formed when cooler air from the aqueducts below met the warmer Concourse. Aromas of cooking meat and pizo spice saturated the air. This was the only portion of the avenue my people visited. Technically the entire Concourse was part of the undercity, but only people in Cries believed that. No one in the aqueducts considered it part of our world. In fact, the police usually ran off any undercity intruders they caught on the boulevard.

Most exits from the Concourse to the aqueducts were hidden behind the rickety stalls that crusted the lower end of the street. Only archway offered a visible exit. It stood at the very end of the street, with a sign that warned citizens not to venture beyond that point. Today I walked by that sign and into the rocky area beyond. We called this area the Foyer because it felt like the entrance to a house, a natural “room” hollowed out of the stone by whatever water had run through here in past ages. Jagged rock walls enclosed the area. On the far side, a walkway sloped downward, leading to the aqueducts. A street lamp shone at the head of the path, one of the few additions that Cries maintained for the aqueducts. I had always liked those lamps. They had an antique quality, not only the aged appearance of the metal, but also in the way the top curled around in a scrolled loop. A lamp hung by a chain from that curve.

Sometimes anthropologists from the university used this path to visit the aqueducts. I had known one in my youth, Professor Orin. The first time he came down, I followed him in secret, fascinated by the way he explored the niches and crannies in the walls. When a dust gang tried to mug him, it pissed me off that they interfered with my discovery. I had shouted at them from hiding places, throwing rocks and insults as if I were four gangers instead of one, until they decided Orin wasn’t worth the trouble and went away. Orin was clearly flustered by the incident, which involved a lot of noise between people he mostly couldn’t see, but he continued his research trip. I was so impressed when he didn’t run back to Cries, I stayed with him the entire day, hidden and silent. After he left, I convinced Jak, Gourd, and Dig to help me protect him. Word of our taking him into our circle spread through the whisper mill, and after that people left Orin alone when he visited.

Orin had known I was following him. He lured me out with offers of cocoa sticks and water. He built enough trust that after a while I walked with him, talking about my life in my terse dialect. Eventually I led him to hidden artifacts. He let me work on his digs and he taught me the language of the above-city. I learned more from him about anthropology, the history of Cries, the world Raylicon, and our ancestors than I ever would have in a traditional school class.

Without realizing it, at least not at first, Orin stumbled on the only way to work with one of us. In the undercity, we hated charity. We made bargains. My interactions with Orin benefited both him and me, so I didn’t feel he was giving me charity or taking advantage of me.

I had loved those visits, better than any school. Formalized education would never work in the aqueducts. I couldn’t imagine gangs or punkers sitting still for traditional classroom instruction. Sure, the cyber-riders might try virtual classes, but they would spend more time screwing with the system than learning. Many of them already knew more about tech-mech and neural surgery than the teachers, knowledge they passed to their younger acolytes. They learned by doing, including on themselves. They were wizards, yes, but no safeguards existed beyond what they had worked out over the generations. If they ignored the safeties that time and experience had warned them to respect, they could pay a dear price. When they were at their best, however, no one could match them. They had also accumulated a body of arcane knowledge about biomech technology beyond anything known by even the best adepts in Cries.

I crossed the Foyer to the walkway that led to the canals, but instead of heading down to the aqueducts, I sat down on a truncated cone of rock. From there, I could look across the Foyer to the archway that opened onto the Concourse and the shacks clustered out there. Even as I watched, a boy snuck from the Concourse into the Foyer, smooth and stealthy, clutching meat sticks he had probably filched from a stall. He glanced at me as he ran by, headed to the aqueducts. After he disappeared around a curve of the path, the place was silent again.

“Heya,” a voice rumbled.

I looked around. Jak was standing in the shadows nearby, near the wall.

“Heya,” I said.

He came over and sat on a cone next to me. Some undercity gang had made these seats long ago, breaking off the top of rock formations and smoothing them into flat surfaces. The seats were in good condition because so few people used this exit. Above-city types didn’t come here much and my people usually used hidden entrances to visit the Concourse.

“My circle is packing up,” he told me. “Going to safety.”

That was good news. His “circle” included the employees of the Black Mark and their families, also Gourd and the kids he looked after.

“I talked to some gangers and riders,” I said. The newly minted dust knights, in fact. I had tasked them to spread the word:
Kajada and Vakaar are going to war. Take shelter.

He nodded as he looked restlessly around the foyer. “Good.”

“Jak.”

“Hmm?” He had that jumpy quality that came when he couldn’t concentrate. His fingers twitched where they rested on his legs. It was no wonder, given that anyone could see us sitting here. When he felt stressed or in danger, he preferred the shadows.

“How many children do you think live in the undercity?” I asked.

“Dunno. Thirty, maybe?” He shifted his weight. “Plus the punkers.”

“I think it’s more.” I thought back my tykado session with the dust knights. “I saw fourteen today. Mostly gangers and a few riders. And that wasn’t half of them, I’m sure.”

“Don’t see why it matters.”

“That’s a lot of children.”

He was watching me now with a scrutiny I dreaded, because he always saw too much. “Did something happen?”

I didn’t know how to tell him about the knights. Today I’d given them an unspoken promise that I would stay in Cries, but I wasn’t ready to tell Jak. I wasn’t even sure how I felt about it. So I changed the subject. “What about Braze, the commander who gambles in your club?”

He frowned at me. “What about her?”

“You got a lot of above-city types coming to the Black Mark.”

“Sometimes.” A dangerous smile quirked his lips. “You want dirt on the dandies?”

“No.” Not that it wouldn’t be useful, but this was about something else. “I wondered if other ISC officers go to your place.”

“A few. Mostly Braze. Why?”

“We’ve all assumed Scorch was part of an offworld smuggling ring. Maybe we’re wrong.” I thought of how she murdered everyone connected to her operation. “She seemed obsessed with keeping her operation a secret.”

“She had to. She had a Majda prince.”

“Yah.” It would be a long time before I stopped seeing the way she had slaughtered that guard in the desert. “But if she was involved with an offworld ring, she wouldn’t have control over who knew her business. She couldn’t do anything about them. That doesn’t fit.”

“You’re saying ISC is wrong?”

“Could be.” I grimaced, remembering Scorch’s psychotic stare. “She had an obsessive need to stay in control. I can’t see her agreeing to act as some minor cog in a big smuggling machine. It wouldn’t give her enough control.”

Jak was sitting completely still now. “Then where’d she get the guns?”

“Braze lost a lot in the Black Mark,” I said. “More than she could pay, eh? She needed more credits, and fast, before you screwed with her. So she sold guns to Scorch.”

“Braze fucked up,” Jak said flatly. “That fault is hers. Not the Black Mark.”

“Your casino enables gambling addicts.”

He stood up, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Got to go.”

“No, you don’t got to go,” I growled. “You just don’t like what I’m saying.”

“Not argue this, Bhaajo.”

I wished he wouldn’t call me that when I was trying to be angry. I laid my hand on his vacated seat. “All right, let’s leave it for now.”

“Leave it for never,” he muttered. But he sat again. “Why would Scorch want the weapons, if not for the smuggling ring?”

“I don’t know. She could sell them to punkers.”

He snorted. “Or kill them. Kajada, Vakaar, other bosses. Her rivals.” His voice roughened. “Me.”

“Not you.” I would have strangled her first.

He spoke wryly. “She’s a smuggler who smuggles guns to help her smuggle guns.”

I wouldn’t put it past her, but it still didn’t fit. “Dead people couldn’t use those weapons, and she kept killing anyone who knew about her operation.” I thought of the Alcove. “Maybe she was smuggling people.”

“Prince Dayjarind.”

“Him. Others.” It still didn’t explain the guns, though.

“What others?”

“I dunno. No one here but us dusters.” The Traders would certainly want Dayj, but they had no use for us other undercity types. “I need to know more about Braze. Not what she does in the open, but in secret.”

Jak turned on his slow, dark grin. “I should open the Black Mark again. See what goes on.”

Gods. The grin of his was as potent as aged whiskey. “Yah,” I murmured. “Let’s see.”

* * *

Lavinda was no less imposing when she was sitting down, but at least we could relax more than when we stood around in one of those alcoves overlooking the mountains. We were in the suite where I had stayed at the palace, seated at the same black lacquered table where I had drunk wine with Captain Krestone. It hit me hard. I’d missed Krestone.

Lavinda sipped her mug of kava. “You are an inordinately difficult person to find, Major.”

“My apology.” Normally I would have given her my spiel about why I needed secrecy, but I had told Chief Takkar I would be available and then I had gone shrouded. Lavinda had good reason for her annoyance.

However, she said only, “Takkar is concerned about the violence you think might break out in the aqueducts.”

Interesting. Most people in Cries said “the slums.” Aqueducts or canals were the names we used ourselves. “The cartels have been fighting for generations,” I said. “With Scorch’s weapons, they can ramp up their battles.”

“It would help to know where they plan to fight.”

“I don’t know.” Which was true. I had no idea.

Lavinda sounded frustrated. “We are getting nowhere in tracking those stolen guns.”

“Don’t laser carbines have chips you can trace?”

“That depends.” She tapped her finger against her mug. “We assumed they were part of several shipments that disappeared last year, but tracing the chips in those carbines only led us to junk heaps. The smugglers had cut out the chips and thrown them in the waste.”

Okay. This was my opening. “I’m not convinced these guns came from an offworld smuggling ring.”

She was studying me closely. “Why not?”

Why indeed. I couldn’t accuse an ISC officer without evidence, and I had none against Braze that wouldn’t also implicate Jak. I chose my words with care. “I would suggest you do a search on chips for gun shipments that originated in Cries. Not stolen shipments, but weapons properly sent and supposedly delivered to military bases.” The crates in the cavern had been recent issue. “Something within the last year.”

Her voice turned icy. “Just exactly what are you implying?”

“I’m not implying anything,” I said. “It’s a suggestion. If it comes to nothing, that’s all for the better.” It would mean either Braze was smarter than I gave her credit for and had covered her tracks, or else I was an idiot with a stupid idea.

Lavinda took another swallow of her kava. I could almost feel her mind pressing against mine. I kept my thoughts shuttered.

After a moment, the colonel quit trying to spy on my mind, or at least the pressure receded. She set her mug on the table. “Anything else, Major?”

“Probably nothing,” I said. “It looks like Scorch was also dealing fake drugs.”

“Challenging the other cartels?” Dryly she said, “They probably wanted her dead, too.”

That was the logical conclusion, but I didn’t think so. “She wasn’t dealing anything worth their time, I don’t think. Just a phony designer drug. Supposedly it made some kids act crazy, but the only person I know who actually tried it told me that it had no effect at all.”

“I’ll note it in our files.” She sounded preoccupied, still concerned with of smuggling and military treason rather than more minor issues. “Does this fake drug have a name?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I heard it called node-bliss.”